Towson State basketball coach Terry Truax said last night that he will inform athletic director Bill Hunter Monday that he is staying at the school if the Southwest Conference does not arrive at a decision this weekend on whom it will name as the league's assistant commissioner/director of basketball operations.

Truax, 46, is still one of two finalists for the job after being interviewed for 1 1/2 hours in Dallas Wednesday by a five-man SWC advisory committee that is helping SWC commissioner Fred Jacoby fill the newly created position.

Truax said he also met with Jacoby for one hour after going before the advisory committee, and came away from Dallas "feeling very good from the standpoint that it was a very fair committee that really projected positive traits."

However, Truax insisted that he still "doesn't have a feel" which way the committee and Jacoby are leaning in the selection process.

The other finalist is Bowling Green associate athletic director Chuck Nagle, 44. Nagle was also interviewed by the advisory committee Wednesday.

Truax said: "If the decision isn't made this weekend, I have to tell Towson State I'm going to stay. That is fair and the right thing to do. Bill Hunter and Towson State have been patient."

Truax said Jacoby indicated that he and the advisory committee would make a decision during the weekend.

Truax and Nagle have become the two finalists after two highly regarded candidates Fred Barakat (assistant Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner and former ACC director of basketball officials) and John Erickson (director of basketball operations for the Big Eight and the first general manager of the Milwaukee Bucks) dropped out of the running.

Barakat and Erickson received raises from their respective conferences, inducing them to stay instead of taking the SWC post.